Today in ancient Greece it is the festival of Hecate, Goddess of the Underworld.

Today is the Feast day of St. John Bosco, patron saint of Catholic Schools.

Happy National Dress up in a Gorilla Suit Day. First advocated by Don Martin, cartoonist for MAD Magazine.

1606- Sir Guy Fawkes cheated the executioner by leaping off the scaffold and breaking his neck. Fawkes was convicted of the Gunpowder Plot, trying to blow up King & Parliament.

1696- Dutch undertakers rose in revolt after the town of Amsterdam mandated reforms.

1795- Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton resigned his cabinet post to play presidential adviser behind the scenes. Hamilton helped develop the American economy on a sound basis, but his imperious demeanor offended many. The English job of Prime Minister evolved out of the Exchequer, so Hamilton hoped the Treasury job would make him the real power in government. Political heat as well as revelations Hamilton was diddling a married woman named Mrs. Reynolds finally made it too hot for him to stay in office. Congress then set up the House Ways & Means Committee to ensure a Secretary of the Treasury never got that much power again.

1839- Englishman William Fox Talbot says Frenchman Louis Daguerre is full of pate' when he announces he had invented photography (1/7/39). Talbot declares HE invented it first. Actually a Belgian priest experimenting with capturing light on chemically treated glass or paper as early as 1817, Thomas Wedgewood in 1770 and Louis Niepce, with whom both Daguerre and Talbot were familiar. While the principles of capturing a shadow had been known for some time, no one had worked out how to fix the image so earlier attempts faded away in a few hours. Niepce' work predates both Talbot and Daguerre by about 10 years and constitute the earliest "photographic" images still extant. But Talbot and Daguerre are considered the fathers of Photography, provided you like history Anglais or a' Francais.

1843-The first recorded minstrel show. The mode became so popular that even black performers were made to wear burnt-cork blackface makeup and white lips.

1865- Passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed slavery in the United States.

1876- The U.S. Congress ordered all remaining Indian tribes to move into reservations or be declared hostile.

1925- Scotch brand invisible tape introduced by the 3-M Company.

1933- The day after he assumed power, in a speech new German Chancellor Adolf Hitler promised he would respect Parliamentary Democracy. Uh, huh….

1940- Mrs. Ida Mae Fuller of Ludlow Vermont received the first Social Security check- $22.50.

1943- End of the Battle of Stalingrad. Field Marshal Von Paulus came out of the bombed out basement of a department store and surrendered the shattered remains of his 6th Army. The highest ranking Nazi General to surrender until the wars end.

1945- Private Eddie Slovik becomes the only U.S. soldier in World War II to be executed by firing squad for desertion.

1950- THE H-BOMB Despite the unanimous recommendation of the civilian Atomic Energy Commission that a "Super" or Hydrogen Bomb "would not be a weapon of war but an instrument of mass genocide," President Harry Truman announced to the world that the U.S. was going to build one anyway. Physicist. I. G. Rabi said he was shocked that Truman should have announced a bomb we still didn't yet know how we were going to build and accelerate the arms race. When Dr. Robert Oppenheimer protested, Truman called him a "sissy-scientist." Secretary of State Dean Acheson groaned privately to a friend: "What a horrible world we're living in."

1954- Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM Radio, driven to despair by constant lawsuits with RCA Corporation over his patents, jumped to his death out of a hotel window. He first put on his hat, overcoat and gloves because he didn't want to be cold...(?) Armstrong loved heights and used to climb hundreds of feet in the air to meditate on top of his radio antennas. By 1977 his family won all the lawsuits. Today, most radio, television and air traffic communications are by FM band.

1958- The U.S. enters the Space Race with the launching of satellite Explorer- 1.

1963- U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara declared to the press:" The War in Vietnam is going quite well…"

50t Years Ago 1968- TET- This day the North Vietnamese army combined with the Viet Cong guerrillas surprise attacked American Forces all over South Vietnam. Even the capitol Saigon and the American Embassy became battle zones. Despite an alert issued the night before, 200 US intelligence officers attended a pool party, and were as surprised as everyone else. Although all the Vietnamese attacks were defeated and the Viet Cong destroyed, the U.S. public was shocked that such an attack could happen from what they had been told was " A defeated enemy" It was the turning point of the Vietnam War.
The military of course, blamed the media and asked for a bigger budget.

1968- The Seattle city council concluded that there was no legal means to curb hippies hanging out in the downtown U- District.

1974- Apollo 14 blasted off for the moon. This voyage is chiefly remembered for Alan Shepard playing golf on the lunar surface.

1978- Polish director Roman Polanski fled the U.S. for exile after being charged for having sex with a thirteen year old girl in Jack Nicholson's house.

1989- Michael Jackson's sister LaToya Jackson posed nude for Playboy.

1995- First Meeting of the WTO- World Trade Organization.

1999- The first episode of Seth McFarlane's show Family Guy premiered.

2003- DOWNING STREET II- The Downing St. meeting minutes proved without a doubt that President Bush planned to invade Iraq after the 9-11 attack. In this days' meeting between English Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush, it was stated, " It is unlikely that the weapons inspectors will discover any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." President Bush responded that it was too late to change the plans. They would start bombing Iraq on March 10th.
Downing 1 was made public in 2005 and Downing II, was not made public until 2009.
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Yesterday's question: Which American state was known as The Empire State?

Answer: New York. In 1785 George Washington wrote a thank-you letter to the New York Common Council for bestowing upon him the 'Freedom of the City'. In addition to praising New York's resilience in the Revolution, he described the state as
"the Seat of the Empire." New Yorkers, liked the title.